Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergey Adonin: Modern schoolchildren are the future scientific and engineering elite of the country
Sergey Alexandrovich, what surprised the Congress?
Sergey Adonin: Traditionally, chemists, for example, work with physicists or biologists. But the cooperation of chemists and historians is not so obvious. Although if you think about it, chemistry can also be very useful for historians, for example, to examine manuscripts or the composition of the ink which were used for writing. You know, as the phrase goes, a concentrated nutritious "broth" is needed for the birth of science. Definitely, there is one here.
You are working on creating new materials for solar panels. What are the prospects for this type of energy in Russia?
Sergey Adonin: There are regions of Russia where the insolation is very high, and notice the fact: sunny does not mean warm. Sunlight does not necessarily warm. For example, there is high insolation in the Trans-Baikal Territory, but this are no resorts, although the region is very beautiful. I am not a supporter of total solarization and in general the maximum spread of these supposedly green technologies. Not every technology that seems green at first glance is one indeed. If we estimate how eco-friendly solar panels are, then we need to estimate the entire production and recycling process, that is, the entire life cycle of this battery. I believe that in Russia the main development of energy will depend not on renewable sources, but on the development of hydropower and nuclear energy. The latter is the future. Our country is already leading in this area, we just need to move on.
What should modern schoolchildren who aspire to science focus on?
Sergey Adonin: Data processing methods play a very important role now: by examining the arrays of experimental data that were obtained earlier, you can get interesting results. Yes, digitalization has also reached chemistry, and for quite a long time. There are already computational methods that allow us to predict what properties a compound with a certain composition of chemical elements will have. Will it be stable, under what conditions, what will be the optical properties. Today we can try to predict all this with a good degree of probability. By the way, this sphere is developing very well in Russia.
At the congress, you presented the project "NASHA LABA". It has already been supported by the President across the whole country. What is it?
Sergey Adonin: "NASHA LABA" is a national catalog of scientific equipment and consumables, which we created together with the Youth Council of the All-Russian Society of Inventors and Innovators. Now there are more than 150 manufacturers (we are also planning to add at least 300 more and these are just the immediate prospects) from different regions of Russia and Belarus and more than eight thousand product names. The catalog is being constantly updated. So, a Russian or Belarusian company can create a personal account and add its scientific equipment goods to its website - appliances, consumables, reagents, even furniture. The main condition is that it really be produced in Russia or Belarus. The idea came to me back in 2014 - at that time it was interesting to me to see whether it is possible to import the things that I need in my scientific work. Then I conducted a small experiment in my laboratory: I began to gradually fill it with Russian equipment. It turned out that we actually produce a lot, but not all of it is easy to find - Russian goods often lose out in marketing. That was the moment when the idea of creating a specialized catalog that would help our scientists and engineers in finding the things they need came to my mind. In this summer, I shared the idea with the colleagues from the Coordinating Council, we very quickly cooperated with Olga Tarasova from the All-Russian Society of Inventors and Innovators Youth Council and began our work.
You are 35 years old, you are a doctor of sciences, and you feel that someone is already breathing down your neck from behind?
Sergey Adonin: I see modern schoolchildren and I can say that there are absolutely wonderful guys among them. For example, every year I visit Sirius and see the guys who come here - this is a "brain concentrate", new generations of the scientific and engineering elite of the country. They will come to our place years later. So we definitely have a future.
What problems are facing the young science now?
Sergey Adonin: They are basically common to all science. These are, for example, great difficulties with the bureaucracy in the field of research. Today, scientists spend a lot of time on writing papers, not on science. Just for example: to buy equipment, you need to find three companies ready to make commercial offers, wait for them… This is not the task of a scientist at all, but now there is so much of this formalism that it chases researchers, even if the organization has well-established administration. It shouldn't be like this, it's not normal. The fight against this is gradually being conducted, but, unfortunately, very slowly. I hope that the extreme situation in which we find ourselves, when both science and the economy are having a hard time, will give a push in the right direction and remove unnecessary barriers.
To combine life and science, young scientists need to earn well...
Sergey Adonin: A new scholarship program for graduate students is currently under development, the project is publicly available, the relevant department of the Ministry of Education and Science works in close conjunction with our council. I can say for sure: it will be much more convenient for graduate students to work with such a program. Of course, not for everyone, but for the best - a rather tough competitive selection is expected, but the award to the winners will be very substantial. What is important is that the amount (believe me, it is very good) will be the same for the whole country, regardless of the region.
Source: " Rossiyskaya Gazeta"